During the Cold War, the Strategic Air Command operated 24 hours a day as a shield of protection for our nation. This meant that at any point in a given day, there were fully combat-configured bombers flying to assure the safety of our nation.

Since these planes flew constantly, how did they remain full of gas? They did what is called mid-flight refueling. A refueling plane actually flew up next to the Strategic Air Command plane, docked in, and filled the plane with gas.

As a pastor, you need to learn how to refuel your life in mid-flight. You can’t just hop off to a tropical island every time you get tired and discouraged. You have to keep going. You have to learn how to recharge yourself in the middle of your hectic lifestyle.

The fact is, it takes energy to do God’s will. What do you do when you run out of energy? Psalm 94:19 says, “Lord, when doubts fill my mind, when my heart is in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer” (TLB).

I suggest that once a day, you should go outside in your yard, sit down, and…

The difference between being a church attender and a church member is commitment.

Attenders are spectators from the sidelines; members get involved in the ministry. Attenders are consumers; members are contributors. Attenders want the benefits of a church without sharing the responsibility.

One of the biggest hurdles you will face as a church leader is convincing attenders they need to commit to their church family and become members. Today’s culture of independent individualism has created many spiritual orphans without any identity, accountability, or commitment.

God is not silent on this issue. The Bible offers many compelling reasons why every believer needs to be committed to and active in a local fellowship.

1. A church family identifies you as a genuine believer.

I can’t claim to be following Christ if I’m not committed to any specific group of disciples. Jesus said,“Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:35 NLT).

When we come together in love as a church family from different backgrounds, races, and social statuses, it is a witness to the world. No one believer can be the body…

I walked through the doors of Celebrate Recovery 14 years ago on the recommendation of a family counselor. She suggested that I might be struggling with some codependency. I wasn’t sure why she thought that. I was fine. The fact that I was unhappy and anxious was not my fault. It was everyone else who was messed up! I’m a pastor! I knew my marriage wasn’t perfect, but we hadn’t cheated on each other. We were deeply committed to staying together. Sure, we had conflict, but I thought that if my wife would just respect me, our marriage would be so much better.

I was angry with our teenage son for using marijuana. I remember thinking, I am not the one who needs help in this family. If my wife would change, if my son would get his act together, things would be fine. My focus had been on pointing out how they needed to change. I tried quite diligently to get them to change but to no avail. I would use my loud voice. I felt shame when I did that. I would offer…

God never intended for anyone to walk through life alone. He made us for each other, and he wants us all to belong to his forever family.

One of sin’s effects on the human race has been the separation from God and from other people that we all experience. From Adam onward, we’ve all had the tendency to hide in shame.

But there is help, not only from the redemptive work God accomplished through his Son, Jesus, but also in the form of other people.

Part of your healing will always be found in the context of healthy community.

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble” (NLT).

These verses teach about the principle of mutuality, and there are three significant needs met in our lives by the mutuality of biblical community.

First, we all need mutual accountability.

In other words, you need a prayer partner. You check in on each other and support one another in your spiritual journey.

“‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ . . . But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man’” Genesis 2:18, 20-23 (ESV).

The Bible goes on to recount how Adam and Eve fell into temptation and did the one thing that the Lord told them not to do. They then played the “excuse and accuse” game. They blamed each other for their mistakes and bad choices.

How often do we do that in our relationships—especially in marriage? “If my husband wasn’t this way, I wouldn’t respond like that.” “If my wife…

One of the most powerful tools God has used to grow Saddleback Church in profound ways over the last several decades has been the spiritual growth campaign.

We usually move through seven or eight major sermon series per year, which gives us the chance to cover all five of the purposes of God for the church. Typically, two of those series are what we refer to as spiritual growth campaigns.

These campaigns have been responsible for thousands of baptisms and tens of thousands of spiritual decisions, as well as major waves of growth for our church.

One of our campaigns always happens in the spring while the second is in the fall, when people are finding their routines and starting to re-engage after summer vacation season has ended.

The end of summer, for us, is always a season of preparation for the fall campaign.

1. Identify the areas of growth your church needs most.

In a season of prayer and reflection, look back on the series you’ve preached in the last couple of years and identify areas that might have been neglected or opportunities that need a fresh focus.

It’s impossible to estimate the kind of good the church could do for the world if every believer was financially healthy and spiritually mature in the area of generosity.

The problem is, the church is hurting in this area–badly. According to USA Today,

The average American household carries $137,063 in debt, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest numbers.

Yet the U.S. Census Bureau reports that the median household income was just $59,039 last year, suggesting that many Americans are living beyond their means.

I believe we, as church leaders, often underestimate the amount of financial pressure most families feel because we want to trust that people would be open about poor financial management. But the fact is, people are private about finances.

And pastors, we’re not immune. Many pastors have a hard time teaching about money because of the personal guilt they feel about their own financial problems.

Debt is a problem we can’t ignore any longer. But how do we get out from under it?

We’ve got to commit to these eight steps and help the people in our congregations do the same.

1. Commit to becoming debt-free now.

I have this displayed on my office whiteboard: “Vision without implementation equals hallucination.” I believe in vision. If you don’t have a plan for implementing your vision, you are wasting your time. Success involves the management of ideas. Ideas can provide wonderful breakthroughs for your ministry. However, trying to implement too many ideas at once can crush or fragment your ministry. Here are five important keys to begin building a solid foundation for your small group ministry . . .

Think Church-wide

Each local church is meant to be a unified body, working together in a coordinated way toward a common purpose. This means that as you plan your small group ministry, you should start by thinking church-wide. The weekend services, the small groups, and the other church ministries all work together to achieve the outcome of a mature disciple — what Saddleback calls the Purpose Driven Life.

Plan Intentionally

Whole-church coordination doesn’t happen by accident. It takes intentional planning. As Christians, it is possible to get caught in the passive “If God wants it to happen, it will happen” trap, and this can often…

I’m a follower of Jesus Christ who struggles with addiction and self-control. My name is David.

I recall receiving affection and attention as a child, attending church with my folks, and going to the racetrack with my dad, who was a jockey for 14 years. My mother was loving and giving with everyone she encountered. But my parents also struggled greatly.

As a boy I tried to fit in with others while battling a sense of feeling “less than” others. But I thrived as a wrestler and was academically successful. I was fairly industrious working after-school jobs. By high school, I felt alienated from the church.

During college, hard drugs were everywhere and took a toll on others and me. It was so easy to delude myself into thinking that I was only hurting myself. People were wrecking their cars, their marriages, and going to jail. Two kids died from heroin overdoses at my house. I came to hate heroin and what it did to people. Yet there I was using other substances.

I had played music professionally, but my focus shifted as I became involved with people who had been exiled from Iran during…

You can’t please everybody. Just about the time you get one group of people pleased, another group gets mad at you. Even God doesn’t please everyone.

Jesus lived with a singular purpose: to please the Father. He said in John 5:30, “I cannot do anything on my own. The Father sent me, and he is the one who told me how to judge. I judge with fairness, because I obey him, and I don’t just try to please myself” (CEV).

When you don’t know whom you’re trying to please, you cave in to criticism because you’re wondering what everybody else is going to think about you.

You also cave in to competition because you’re worried whether somebody else is getting ahead of you.

And you cave in to conflict because somebody disagrees with you and you don’t know whom you’re trying to please. You give in to keep them happy with you.

A long time ago, I decided that in my life, I want to please one person: Jesus Christ. If I focus in on just pleasing God, my life will be simplified. Pleasing God will always be the right thing to do….

“Therefore comfort each other and edify one another” 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NKJV).

The paradox of recovery is that both the wounds behind addiction and the healing of those wounds are relationally based. This is why healthy relationships are a protected and essential part of Celebrate Recovery. Unfortunately, many men are resistant to healthy relationships and, as a result, are not maturing in recovery.

One of the reasons men resist needs-based relationships is what I call masculine-masking. I believe one of the most spiritually crippling masculine-masking messages is the belief that “needing someone is weak.” This mask is especially dangerous because spiritual growth is relational. We grow spiritually and emotionally through healthy relationships with God and others. When we say we don’t need anyone, we are halting our own progress. In reality, this mask reveals emotional wounds rather than emotional health.

When I was a young teenager and both my parents were incarcerated, my response was to protect myself from close relationships in order to avoid getting hurt. In his book Hiding From Love, Dr. John Townsend explains this response: “When you experience emotional injury, fear, shame, or pride,…

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